BILLINGS — On this Friday, we see mostly cloudy skies with just a few holes in the cloud cover. In the early afternoon, it was 41 degrees in Billings with a west wind at 18 mph.
Around the rest of the state, our current temps were mostly into the 30s and 40s, although Sheridan was in the 50s at 2 p.m.
The big story has been the wind Friday afternoon. Winds were gusting up to 62 mph in Livingston, and an hour later, it was gusting up to 76 mph with maximum sustained winds of 54 mph.
Because of that, we have a number of high wind warnings wind advisories and winter weather advisories across much of Montana. The High Wind Warnings have winds gusting 65 to 75 mph.
A Winter Weather Advisory for the Absaroka Range could see up to a foot of snow there, and 2 to 6 inches of snow on the east range. Meanwhile, the rest of the mountains could see winds gusting up to 60 mph through Saturday evening.
Plus, we have a Winter Weather Advisory for most places west of the Divide. There we could see 1 to 6 inches of snow, with blowing and drifting snow.
In Yellowstone National Park, we have a Winter Storm Warning for 5 to 8 inches of snow in the central part of the park and 10 to 15 inches of snow in the southwest corner of the park.
Right now, the Doppler radar shows the snow continues to make its way to the western part of Montana, and we see a few scattered rain and snow showers up along the Hi-Line.
So far, the downsloping winds seem to inhibit most of the snowfall development out of the plains. It is pumping a few cloudy skies our way, though.
The high-resolution forecast model shows most of the snow showers are expected to remain in the western part of the state this weekend. Here in south-central Montana, we expect to go dry because the downsloping winds will prevent the snow from developing.
It will be 42 degrees Friday night at 5:30 p.m., then we will roll it back down to the 30s overnight and back up to 39 degrees 1:30 p.m. Saturday.
We will top out at 40 degrees on Saturday, keep it in the 40s on Sunday and Monday, then up to 60 degrees on Tuesday and back to the 50s as we go into the end of next week.
BILLINGS FORECAST
TONIGHT: Mostly cloudy and cool. West winds 10 to 20 mph. Low 29°.
SATURDAY: Partly sunny, windy and warmer. West winds 20 to 35 mph gusting to 50 mph in the afternoon. High 40°.
SUNDAY: Partly sunny and not as windy. Southwest winds 10 to 20 mph. High 45°.
